Since qHD will soon be the default resolution in high end smartphones, I would like to see how qHD S-LCD fares with qHD (SAMOLED+) with RGB stripe layout with slight adjustment in maximum brightness & white point levels...Reply

I personally think the HTC Sensation looks much nicer than the Galaxy S II, and it also provides all 4 Android buttons, which is more useful.Also, Sense 3 is a genuinely nice addition, so I REALLY don't understand the lust for AOSP based ROMs.I know which phone I'll be recommending if people ask me...Reply

I actually registered just to post this, and here it goes:Sense (and the other skins) just need to DIE: they're bloated, ugly and inefficient (not to mention introduce bugs that stock Android does not have); worse than that, they are way of creating vendor lock-in and force users to upgrade hardware by withholding Android updates (a very clever trick to neuter one of the greatest advantages of Android, its open source nature).Why can't OEMs just stick to do their job? People complain about the crapware OEMs install on PCs (which at least you can uninstall or just format) and somehow this is OK? Also, commodization is exactly what makes the PC ecosystem great: customers can shop around for the best price for their performance needs without having to worry about their devices being left without a software upgrade path or features unavailable. And with phone makers locking their bootloaders the last way of getting out of their death grip, custom ROMs, are being taken away from us.Finally, I'd much rather rely on software written by a good software company (Apple, MS, Google) with 100s of engineers dedicated to the project than the much smaller team an OEM can afford to put on the job.Reply

Well, I have a Desire HD, rooted, s-off, I can put whatever the hell I want on it...

Oh, and I choose to use a sense based ROM with Sense 3. I've had a phone with pure CyanogenMod, it's all well and good, the point is, as long as the phone isn't horribly locked, and xda-dev get their dirty mitts on it, you can have whatever yo uwant!Reply

Exactly the same here, except I'm using a Desire (non-HD). I really like Sense. I rooted the phone about one year ago and was using Stock Android ROMs a lot. I really liked it. Now I returned to a Sense 2.1-3.0 mix and I like it even more. Some things are simply better with Sense. I also replaced the launcher with LauncherPro (also on Stock Android) because it gives you a really nice, smooth experience. In this regard, pretty much every stock browser, be it Sense or stock Android have failed thus far.

@BrianStrange that Brightness, Airplane Mode and Screen Rotation is missing, as it is included in Sense 2.1 (for example Desire S). But you probably already knew that, as you listed exactly the 3 things that are included there... :-)Reply

Aosp ui is pretty archaic compared to touchwiz/sense, it lacks a lot of features that makes the phone more user friendly to the average person.Compare the aosp lockscreen to the sense3 lockscreen, which do you think the average person would want? Compare the widgets from touchwiz4 to the widgets of aosp... oh wait there aren't any in aosp. Catch my drift? Majority of users aren't like you and me that want a plain aosp/cm7 phone, so sense/touchwiz will never die, top selling phones will never be plain google aosp phones because that's not what majority of the public wants.Reply

I think it's important to keep in mind that AOSP was designed with UI modifications in mind. It's not like HTC/Moto/Sammy/LG/Lenovo/Sony got their hands on source and went to work altering it against Goog's wishes. They wanted to be supportive of modifications to the OS from corporations and amateurs alike.

Yes, the course was lost as manufacturers delayed updates in order to implement their UI, and some of the UIs were buggy, but then again lots of popular custom ROMS are buggy and users still love them. The point is, if there's value added, which in the case of Sense 3.0 and, by reports, the new Blur then it might be worth the cost to many. But devs should work with Google to make sure that their skins add without being too deleterious. Where I think all OEM devs should back off is in integrating social media streams; unless your implementation is decidedly better than the best social media apps then it's likely going to be a redundant, unwelcome presence. Reply

I don't think I've ever used the search button in previous devices, but I guess that's personal preference.

I tried out the Sensation before buying the Galaxy S2. There was absolutely no contest. The S2 felt snappier browsing the web (A9 is 25% quicker clock for clock vs. A8/snapdragon), much lighter and nicer to hold without feeling cheap or creaking and I thought the screen on the Sensation was fairly poor in comparison. On top of that the S2 will play absolutely any video you throw at it, I'm told it'll even play 1080p mkvs and my 720p mkv Avatar makes people's jaws drop on the S-Amoled+ screen.

The Sense launcher is nice, but I use Go Launcher EX, which has most of the features of the Sense and is almost infinitely customizable. The Sense lock widgets screen looks nice, but is useless is you use pattern or pin lock.

There are 2 negative points regarding the Sensation which keep me from buying the phone:

1. As you mentioned, the space between the display and the case. Many users already got dirt and dust under their display.2. Choppy performance. It's a dualcore phone and the browser is still very choppy - I can't live with that. I don't buy a DC phone just to see choppy browsing.

At the same time, other high end phones like the Galaxy S2 suffer from huge problems too. The praised display has huge drawbacks. A yellowish tint and gradient from left to right and huge banding issues. It's very well documented on XDA.I expect those things on mediocre phones. But choppy browsing performance despite a DC SoC or problems with the display (be it dirt or just a crappy display) are a no go for a super high end smart phone for me. So I'll probably wait for the next Nexus.Reply

That's one of the things I love about Windows Phone 7. The smoothness of the platform, even on older hardware, is amazing. When comparing it with an Android phone back when I purchased (last November) my LG Quantum, and the Android device actually had better hardware, the choppiness was unreal. I would hope that it would be better with these DC phones but it doesn't seem to be the case.

brian,this is one of the few reviews which have praised sensation.but in my view your review is the best.i am saying this because i believe that unlike other reviewers you not only test mobile phones in your lab but also use them as in daytoday life as a normal user.this gives a better impression of the devices which you review.many reviewers have given more praises to sgs2 than sensation.they have based their views with the limited time which they had with the devices that too in their testing labs.but i believe that in real world usage sensation makes more sense than sgs2.and this has happened before with their older brothers that is desire and sgs.the reviewers had given more praises to the sgs but the actual users prefered desire over sgs.though samsung devices looks great on paper,users get frustated with their handsets.apart from htc in my view hp makes better handsets.lately they are catching up with the hardware but their design sucks.for example take pre3,may be its design makes more sense while handling and using it,but its looks are not good enough to make a good impression.now that they are putting single core1.4ghz processor in pre3,but still they are behind the competition of dualcores.but i do believe that pre3 will give a tough competition to all the dual core phones in terms of speed and performance because of a very light os that is the webos. webos is unarguably the best os out there which is slick and fast,easy to use interface,better management of memory,provides true multitasking,provides a greatfeature like just type, and a best notification system.webos is very very light when compare to ios and android,so i think it doesnt need a dual core processor and 1gb of ram.it can perform better than ios and android even with a single core processor and 512mb ram.but hp needs to work on better designs to give a better impression of their devices.

by the way,congratulations brian for this great article.pls tell me what do you think of the observations i made above.Reply

You need to be specific: what hidden drawbacks do Samsung's phones have ? and what hidden qualities, HTC's ?

Disclaimer: my current HTC HD2 is the first phone I'm happy with in ages. I had junk from Motorola, LG, and Nokia before that had serious design flaws, plenty of bugs, bad support... or rather, all of the above. My HTC just worked from day one, now it's started a second life under CM7, and I'm very happy with it 2 yrs on.

I was looking foward to buying a Sensation. But the lighter weight, on the whole, better screen, and better moddability f the GS2 are on the verge of convincing me to buy that, instead.Reply

Read the review of droid charge by brian klug.He clearly mentioned that samoled+ has some serious problems such as overheating,yellowish tint and oversaturated colours.It is the slimmest smartphone in the world,but according to many users sensation is better to handle.Due to its wait and built quality it feels solid in the hand.And also remember that sgs2 is made of plastic.

To know what drawbacks samsung phones have you need to do some googling.Just search fordefects of sgs and sgs2.Reply

Please capitalize your sentences. It was quite the chore trying to read your post. If you want to be taken seriously you need to remember to correctly use those writing rules you learned in school.Reply

Do you still not capitalize stuff in your language? I'm a non-native English speaker too, and my language doesn't even have capital and small letters. I still make an effort to write well so that I can convey my message as clearly as possible.Reply

Wait, what? Having white appear as red is accurate color now?BTW the Galaxy S II gives users a few choices of color calibration even with stock FW. And just wait and see what the hacked ones do...Reply

It's just a warmer white. On AMOLED displays, the white is very blueish (at least in the tested display in this article. Some like it "colder", some "warmer". And yes: AMOLED still produces way too oversaturated colors. It's like turning contrast way too high on your TV (that's often the setting in the shops). People go "Aaahh, look at those colors!" but in reality it's just horrible.The best way to find out is watching a football game. If the green color of the field burns through your eyes, it's wrong ;)Reply

I haven't used Sense on Android but I have used it on Windows mobile and liked it. But you should really take a look at some of what Engadget found in regards to what Sense does to battery life. It's quite astounding really, in some phones it caused a 50% drop in battery life. Reply

When are you guys gonna review the Samsung Galaxy S2?? that's a beast of a phone and the best smartphone on the market today. My Korean friend has it and its insane!!! Cna't wait for it to come to America!Reply

It looks like in Browser Benchmark, iPhone 4 with iOS 5.0 will properly rise to the top. And it is great to see after a year of its introduction, iPhone 4 is still playing very well with it competitors.

About Screen Size, Brian would you and Anand makes notes which size of screen you prefer.

For iPhone 3.5", I think a lot of us want a bigger screen. But what size? 4", 4.3" or even larger?

I think 4.3" is really the upper limit for smartphone displays. I've got the Infuse 4G here beside me, which is 4.5", and that already is almost challenging to hold sometimes, and occasionally awkward to type on. Factor in the fact that it has just a WVGA display, and those pixels are positively gigantic.

Personally, I prefer 4 or 4.3". Anything above that is starting to just get excessive. I can only imagine what that rumored 4.7" HTC WP7 device is going to look like.

Being a tech blog I have always found Anandtech to publish articles on the same phone is the same phone is the same phone (Android). Any updates coming on the beta of Mango that has been released? How smooth it is and how much better it performs given the lower specced hardware the current-gen devices use..Reply

Brian, there has been much debate on XDA about screen quality differences resulting from the Sensation panels being manufactured by two different companies: Sharp and AUO (Acer). I'd love to know which panel you were reviewing.

Can you tell us which panel you have? The way to check is by downloading terminal emulator from the market and running the following command: dmesg That will spit out a bunch of information, just hit menu and email it to yourself then search for "panel". Thanks.Reply

Ahh T-Mobile. It's almost tragic. They have awesome phones but...what's the point? Once the merger happens you have to change the phones and there isn't a full guarantee that our prices will remain the same for monthly bills.Reply

So apparently the T-Mobile phone does not yet have the boot lock removed and knowbody knows if that will be some software update.

Hence question what are then the "unlocked" HTC sensation phones that float around in on EBay etc.?

I ask, because I'm about to get an HTC Sensation (buying it outright) but I want to be able to operate the phone with other carriers SIMs (internationally). So is the T-Mobile phone locked to their network?Reply

Some reviews mention that, by cupping the non-metal parts at the back of the phone with your hands (like whule using it in landscape mode) seriously attenuate reception of one of the radios. Have you tested for this issue?Reply

For me honestly the Sensation is still in-line with other handsets I've tried. You always end up dropping ~15 dB, sometimes more and sometimes less depending on whether the device has diversity with a second antenna up at the top.

It makes a difference when you're on the lower end of signal, but again not more than any other smartphone (excluding the iPhone 4).

And pls dont take too much time too review these flagship smartphones.Other websites have already posted the reviews of sensation and sgs2,they even compared them.Instead of waiting for an american version of sgs2,go and get an international version and post the review with in two weeks.Keep in mind that your readers are going to other websites for smartphone reviews.Reply

How can we get the manufactures to understand that we don't want their crappy bloated buggy interface UI spooged all over our screens?

I have ruled out ever buying a HTC android product because of HTC Sense. I was looking at Motorola since my old Droid is great, but now they smear their Motoblur crap on top of everything they make..

I mean really, MFGS: You are paying your programmers to make your phones CRAPPIER! How does this make sense?

Some of us want a clean uncluttered functional phone without having to root the damn thing.

COME ON! The first Dual Core, Uncluttered Android phone available to buy will be my next phone. Till then YOU ARE NOT GETTING MY MONEY. I'll consider the evil empire (Apple) before going to a "Microsoft Bob" based android phone. (and if you don't get that reference kids, Google it)Reply

Just wanted to thank you Brian for an awesome review. Such a pleasure to read, and the depth of knowledge really shines. In this age of gadget blogs who don't know what they are talking about, AT is just such a breadth of fresh air.

The Sensation looks like a nice device. If I was in the market to buy a new phone, it and the SGSII would be at the top of my list. But I think my HTC Desire, running Gingerbread and with a new battery, still has some life left in it. I'll probably give this generation a miss and wait for the new Nexus phone. The rumored 720p resolution (if it is indeed true) would be amazing.Reply

I disagree - I like the smaller iPhone screen, and prefer it to these giant Android screens. I think that Apple had the right idea - make the phone as small as possible while still being usable.

I'm not saying to go Zoolander small, but anything larger than my Samsung Captivate is just too large, IMO. That's a 4" screen, I believe. I'd still like a slightly smaller screen, however.

The SGS2 appears to be a 4.27" screen - IMO too large. I'm disappointed in that. I'm not sure what my next phone purchase will be, when I finally drop my Captivate against the wall in frustration at it's horrifyingly bad cell antenna not working at all.Reply

I got tired of waiting for your review and went out and bought the Samsung Galaxy S II. All I can say is ... what a fucking brilliant phone. Without a doubt, the best smart phone available this year - right from the brilliant, crisp display to 16GB on board storage to snappy dual core goodness.

Not to nitpick but why is it even called 4G? It's simply a 14.4Mbps device, we have 32Mbit (advertised speed) HSPA+ for "mobile broadband" here in Sweden, and nobody would care much what speed the cell phone is able to use and nobody tries to pass it as anything else. It's simply called HTC Sensation over here in Europe. Do not yet have 4G in my very little town, but 32Mbit HSPA+ is here. Expect 4G even out here in this market within a year or so though. Sooner in neighboring towns. Guess it's a good thing AT&T are picking up T-mobile USA. We will still need HSPA/+ for a while, but we are quickly moving on. Sure you could also opt for a WiMAX 16m network and the handsets is about as immature, but you need to be building your next gen network now.Reply

Yeah I know that, but why not just call it "Our old network till we get picked up by AT&T"? It's clear why they are without a next gen plan. Their customers need to be picked up by another operator for that to happen.Reply

When you review the SGS2 please compare the internal memory on it to the internal memory available on other top of the line android handsets. This is an important limitation on android handsets which are not rooted +/- rommed to overcome the app2internal memory problem of android. Full time Android users [not part time android reviewers :) ] will appreciate what i mean. None of the reviews of android handsets bother to cover this problem users of stock handsets face if they dont root their handsets.

Handsets made by the likes of HTC severely skimp on the internal memory, more specifically the internal memory partitioned and kept for loading apps. On just a year old HTC Desire the partition available for apps is just a measly 147mb. Even on the HTC sensation it is just about 1gb. Compare this to the year old samsung galaxy s which has 1.8gb available for apps. The samsung galaxy s2 also has about 1.9gb available for apps from its 16gb/32gb internal memory. The HTC low internal memory problem does not go away by buying a 32gb card as the card is useless for apps that go on internal memory. The only option on HTC handsets which ALWAYS come with low internal memory compared to the competition (internal memory partition available for apps) is to buy a non HTC handset or to root and get rid of the problem or to use the sdk method described on xda forums.

For a reviews of android handsets it is vital that the internal memory is compared too in a comparison chart and more specifically the internal memory available for apps need comparing too. Please exclude the useless microsd cards supplied with handsets as that is useless for apps that dont go to sd card. Hope you provide such comparison charts for future reviews of android handsets. When games by gameloft etc run into many MBs on internal memory, having internal memory of the likes of 147mb available for apps on the HTC desire will be crucial information especially for many android handset buyers.

Similarly the rear speaker quality being poor is another HTC hallmark in my opinion after owning 2 HTC handsets. But not sure if it is just a hardware issue or HTC software issue. But things get better after loading apps with equalisers (poweramp etc) and boosting the gain. This works later even if the said apps are deleted I think.

Software is nothing without good hardware, so i will be keeping away from HTC and go the samsung galaxys2 way. But I guess the compromise is the much poorer GPS reception on samsung galaxy s2 and other handsets made by samsung.

USB on the go needs to be mentioned as well as competitor handstes have this feature but not the HTC sensation.

Accessories like speaker docks, keyboard are an important differentating feature. Just have a look at the HTC website to see if their handsets can even find one speaker dock or even anywhere else on the net. These options will make a difference to buyers and need to be mentioned in handset reviews.Reply

but is not 800-900MB not enough space thought with an 8-16-32 SD card as well (i be hard pushed to use 800MB of internal storage) samsung need all that space as they have there own app store that has 3-4 games that use a lot of space, most other phones have 800-900Mb free space nowadays, i guessing most samsung phones do the 2gb/6gb split with 8gb internal space

if you was talking about cheaper phones like the HTC desire or some random 1.6-2.1 OS phones with 500-800Mhz cpus (that are still been sold what's very lame as they are Crap) i would agree with you 110-50MB of space is not enough even with A2D (that's only on 2.2+ devices)

i agree with the sound of the load speaker seem to be lacking on 2 HTC phones i have seen

samsung need to fix there GPS issues there is Zero reason that GPS should be flaky at best (the jumping between to points every 1-2 seconds)

---------------i agree GPS should be tested and if the phone has less then 1gb internal storage it should be reported as it makes the phone have limited useReply

Having less internal memory on android phones is actually limitting the number of purchases on the android market. People like me would have probably bought almost all the games by gameloft and many other apps for work. But thats not possible now because of the crap apps 2internal memory policy on android and the equally crap stock app2sd move feature.

The microsd cards are ok, but that does not replace the need for proper internal memory. I already have a couple of 4gb cards, a couple 16gb cards and a couple 32gb cards. Would have preffered a hot swappable card feature without needing to pull the batteries. But I guess the USB on the Go feature on the SGS2 is an alternative. My cards are mainly stuffed with office documents and presentations, teaching videos etc apart from a few songs. But still need good internal memory for apps (some games and other professional apps and loads of teaching apps for my child). Presently i am using one phone for me and another for apps for my child. If the internal memory was ok then i wouldnt need to keep switching between two phones depending on what app i want to use. Not everyone is interested in rooting and playing around with firmware. But the present internal memory hardware situation and crap app2sd stock situation doesnt leave one with much alternatives on android for people who need more internal memory.Reply

As for GPS, i've done multiple tests including a tunnel pass and they've been spot on. Walking sessions showed the exact side of the road that i was on (google maps showed accuracy of ~10m) and during the tunnel test, it was able to get gps signal as soon as i was out of the tunnel. Reply

I'm still waiting for a good real-life battery assessment for a phone. How long does the battery last if the phone is sitting around doing nothing? Can I squeeze 2 days out of it if I forget my charger on a short business trip? How much charge does it lose sitting on a nightstand overnight? I'm a current iPhone 3GS user, and can get up to 3 days of battery out of my phone if I need to. I have no idea if I can do that just by reading this review.Reply

So, battery life assessments are really particular to the user and even down to what day it is. Let's cover your specific questions first.

-Battery life sitting around doing nothing: Well, what good is the phone to you if you're not doing anything with it? And, what is nothing? If you mean screen off and not handled (as I'm guessing you mean, does that mean it's also not updating e-mail, and other apps? If you have absolutely no applications periodically pulling data and you leave any of these phones untouched until they die then they will last . . . a really long time.

-2 days on a business trip: What do you do for a living? Again, if you don't have any apps downloading data periodically, you only ever use your phone as a phone and maybe a few e-mail sessions, then any of these phones should hopefully last that long.

-Sitting on a night stand overnight: See the first answer.

Don't look at these battery life measurements as an absolute, look at them as a guide. If you spend a lot of time downloading data on 3G, then make sure to get a phone that does really well in the 3G test. If 3G isn't your thing but you're on WiFi downloading data a lot, then grok the WiFi graph and pick something near the top. And if you're main use for the phone is voice calls, there's a great list of voice call data available to you. Not sure which you are? Well, it sounds like battery life is your bread and butter so just pick one from the top of the list and go for it. You've got at least two weeks to decide if it's for you and my experience is that the honeymoon period when people get new phones is about 5-7 days, at that point they'll either be happy or dragging their charger around with them.Reply

I am interested in how you managed the MHL to HDMI output, what dongle did you use and what steps did you have to go through to make the phone output in that way? With the cable I have nothing seems to happen despite trying several different ways of doing it.

I am interested in how you used the MHL feature and what dongle it was that you used. I have a micro USB to MHL cable yet despite trying several different methods I cannot get anything to turn up on the screen. Perhaps a step-by-step tutorial or video would be useful as there don't seem to be any available anywhere else.Reply